


Tell Your Heart To Beat Again But, Darling, It Won't Listen

by 46captain46



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, and you should too i guess, magnus is not dealing well, this is sad i'm just hurting a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 13:51:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14379993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/46captain46/pseuds/46captain46
Summary: Grief is nothing new to Magnus. But Alexander was his everything and really, how can one deal with losing his whole life?





	Tell Your Heart To Beat Again But, Darling, It Won't Listen

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just a big mess of feels and stress these days so here you go. Feel free to come murder me.

Grief is a powerful thing. But is by no means new. After living for more than 600 years it becomes a constant in someone’s life, something to be expected. Always there, hidden with the shadows of the dead and whispering in the dead of the night.

He tries to breathe like every other time. Tries to force the oxygen in his lungs but the lump in his throat stops him.

It’s like every other time. He loses and he collapses. He tries to breathe but he can’t. He tries to stand only to fall down again, his legs refusing to carry the weight of the world. It’s like every other time.

Except it isn’t. It’s so, so much worse.

It has been a day. And it has been two. It has been a week and then a month and seven months later he still wakes up missing his heartbeat and feeling his own throb painfully against his chest as he holds his breath unconsciously.

He watches as the sun rises outside of the glass window of their bedroom. _His_ bedroom he tries to remind himself but it’s no use when everything smells of him and everything screams his name and the bathroom mirror glares with his smile as if forever engraved in his lost reflection.

He slips in his robe and walks barefoot to the kitchen. The sun is glaring through the curtains.

Twenty five is a small number. Too small.

He thinks sometimes that maybe if he had grown old by his side and died of old age it would be easier. Maybe if he had had more time with him and watched him age it would have been easier to accept that one day he will have to wake up without his eyes shining up at him or his mouth pressed sweetly against his own.

He’s lying and he knows it. Still, he was trying to prepare himself for losing him after a few good decades together. Not barely a couple of years.

A sob escapes him as he kneels down on the floor, his hand gripping the counter as if letting go will finally be like admitting he can no longer look at the mirror, or can’t refrain from patting the other side of the bed in hopes to find it still warm.

The name Alexander reappears in his mind as if it hasn’t made it its home, and his eyes look back at him pretending they don’t haunt his dreams.

Seven hundred years and he has never felt this helpless.

His breaths come out now but they are short and forced. They echo in the way too big apartment and the vast space makes his stomach turn. There is an inescapable emptiness around him and the hole in his heart is growing bigger every single minute instead of closing.

He wonders briefly if this is what losing a soulmate feels like.

The thought of makeup crosses his mind but it feels wrong in every way there is to try and hide behind it when he isn’t there to clean it from his face when the tears that trickle down leave trails of black on his cheeks.

He doesn’t remember the last time he ate. If he was still with him he would gently sink down in front of him and very quietly run his thumbs over his damp cheeks, giving him that small smile of his that radiates love and concern and Magnus would greedily take it because no one has offered anything as precious as that.

And then he would take him in his arms and lift him off the hard tiles, taking him back to the bedroom or the couch. He would feed him patiently, never too much and never forcefully.

He would run his hands softly through his hair and leave butterfly kisses on the crown of his head, whispering that everything will be alright and that he is here, his warmth seeping into Magnus’ bones.

He misses him. God, how he misses him. He could live for another century and would still not be able to find the words to express the terrible void his heart exists in, or the deafening static in his ears when he thinks of his laughter.

The omamori makes an appearance in his mind and he almost runs to the bedroom to take it from the nightstand as if it’s his lifeline.

And it probably is at this point.

He clutches it tightly in his hands and brings it to his chest as he lets out another choked sob. He doesn’t think he can ever open his heart again. He doesn’t think he will ever love again.

This time it isn’t because too many people hurt him or left him. This time it’s because he found the one, as corny or stupid or maybe naïve as that sounds, and there will never be another to fit his heart so fully and so perfectly as Alexander.

His eyes catch the wooden box on his shelf, left there since their fight two years ago.

He doesn’t want him in the box. He doesn’t want him to be another memory to cry over. He doesn’t want him sealed in there because he knows he’ll never forget him. How could he ever forget Alexander? It’s a cold thought, cruel in its own way.

The omamori can’t go in there. He can’t do it. The action speaks of finality and it reminds him that he has to add his beautiful archer to the people he has lost.

He hates it. He hates the demons that took him away, he hates the world. He hates himself and he hates him too for leaving him so soon and for promising him forever when they both knew it was a sweet lie in the middle of the night. When his fears overcame him and the only thing keeping him alive was the heartbeat underneath his ear.

He wants to keep his memory for as long as he can live. He wants his voice to lull him to sleep and he wants his eyes to give him strength to get through the days. He wants him here and his hands twitch with the burning need to have him close again.

He debates burning the sheets, maybe turn the whole loft to ashes.

But the bed still smells like him because he couldn’t lose that too. It keeps him sane. Or maybe it just drives him closer to insanity.

It’s been months and the days are endless. The hours feel like centuries and the days go by slower than what eternity would feel. His presence lingers to the most unexpected of places and it feels like he will be right there when Magnus turns to look for him.

And he does. Every single time.

There will come a day when he’ll stop. And that day will destroy every part of his heart that has not yet been crashed.

He falls asleep sometime later due to emotional exhaustion and he dreams of Alexander’s arms wrapped protectively around him to keep him safe from his mind.

The tattoos the tear streaks have carved on his cheeks don’t ever quite leave.

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me how much you died in the comments? Thanks for reading.


End file.
